Edo era
Kite Brown & Gold— 鳶と黄金
The warm brown of a kite's wing lit by afternoon gold.
Hue family · 10 colors · 2 palettes
Brown Color Combinations
Tobi, kogecha, kuri — rich earth-tones from kite-brown to burnt cedar.
Browns in the Wada catalogue describe the working surfaces of pre-modern Japan: tatami matting, urushi lacquer, cypress timber, kuri chestnut. Where Western browns lean toward the indistinct, Japanese browns are unusually specific — tobi (kite-bird brown), tonocha (a courtier's tea), kogecha (scorched-tea), each anchored to a recognisable material world.
Every brown in the dictionary
Click any swatch to see the palette where it appears. Every color page lists hex, RGB, WCAG contrast, and cross-links to every Wada plate that uses it.
#C5AC6B Kogane 黄金 5× · 2.2:1 on white
#71502f Pale Raw Umber 5× · 7.3:1 on white
#c5a56e Isabella Color 4× · 2.3:1 on white
#a36752 Sudan Brown 3× · 4.5:1 on white
#6C5A3C Cha 茶 2× · 6.6:1 on white
#4B2E20 Kogecha 焦茶 2× · 12.3:1 on white
#806e4b Light Brownish Olive 2× · 4.9:1 on white
#8A6A47 Kakishibu 柿渋 1× · 5.0:1 on white
#c59f6b Maple 1× · 2.5:1 on white
#8A5A3B Tobi 鳶 1× · 5.8:1 on white
Palettes dominant in brown
2 historical combinations from the 1933 archive where brown carries the strongest visual weight. Each palette page exports as JSON, Tailwind config, CSS variables, or a downloadable share-card image.